1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus that ejects a liquid supplied from a liquid chamber.
2. Related Art
Liquid ejecting apparatuses thus far developed include an ink jet printer (hereinafter, simply “printer”) that ejects ink, an example of the liquid, onto a recording medium such as a paper sheet thereby performing a recording operation. Such printers generally include a holder on which an ink tank serving as a supply source of the ink is mounted. Some of the holders include a supply tube connected to an outlet of the ink tank, and an annular elastic member disposed to surround the supply tube so as to seal the joint portion between the outlet and the supply tube.
An example of the elastic member for sealing the joint portion in the liquid flow path is an O-ring having a circular cross-sectional shape. However, the O-ring generates considerably large counterforce upon being elastically deformed, and hence requires large force for installing the ink tank.
To minimize such a drawback, a structure has been proposed in which a projection is formed on the ink tank, so that the ink tank is engaged with the holder via the projection and then made to pivot about the projection, to mount the ink tank. In addition, the elastic member includes a projection formed along the periphery thereof to which the ink tank is made to abut, so that the counterforce originating from the elastic deformation of the elastic member is reduced (for example, JP-A-10-286972).
However, in the case where the ink tank is brought into contact with the elastic member via the peripheral projection as above, a decrease in contact area therebetween leads to a degraded sealing effect. In particular, when the ink tank is made to pivot in the mounting process the peripheral projection may collapse in the pivoting direction. In such a case, the elastic member may fail to provide a sufficient sealing effect, compared with the case where the ink tank is mounted in a linear motion from the side of the outlet toward the supply tube.
Further, the mentioned drawback is incidental not only to such printers that include the holder on which the ink tank can be mounted, but broadly to liquid ejecting apparatuses having an elastic member for sealing a joint portion in a liquid flow path.